Monday, October 26, 2009

Many, many weeks (months, really) after the Liberal opposition began hammering on the partisan distribution by the Conservatives of stimulus funding, and many weeks after several media organizations did their own studies which largely supported the Liberal contention, we've finally started to see some organized response from the government.

The response comes in a CP story today, which reports Transport minister John Baird's office has done its own study that shows, surprise surprise, nothing to see here. In fact, apparently the big-heated Conservatives are over-favouring opposition ridings. Because they're just that generous.

CanWest's David Akin also crunched some of the numbers for a fund that is intended for educational institutions and found that it favoured opposition ridings. David is a straight-shooting journalist but I have a methodology quibble here: major universities tend to be in major cities where tend to be represented by opposition ridings, so the result would only make sense and doesn't render mute the point made by the other studies at all. Indeed, what would be more valid would be to look at the total number of ridings with major universities, and then see if Conservative university ridings were over-favoured on a percentage basis.

Certainly, there's lots of playing to be done with these numbers. As Baird's spokesperson said they have different funds for different purposes. His office's study was of a fund aimed at major cities, and since urban ridings skew opposition of course those numbers skew toward opposition ridings. Just as Akin's study of the education fund did.

But unless the Liberal and other media studies were of funds designed primarily for rural ridings (and they weren't) then their analysis stands, and Baird's cherry-picked study is just designed to distract from the already cemented narrative. And as Steve pointed out, their counter-argument falls apart there as well, as within rural ridings, the data shows Conservative ridings being favoured.

One of the major problems noted even in Akin's reporting is the difficulty, or imposibility, or getting full and complete numbers on government stimulus spending. The government can complain that these studies are incomplete, but their unwillingness to provide complete information makes a full accounting impossible and supports the thesis there is untoward activity because it makes it seem like they have something to hide.

Really, though, my point is this: the government is many days late and many dollars short on their response here. The narrative here has been set, and the logo cheque scandal cemented it: the Conservatives are playing partisan games with stimulus and are favouring their own ridings. And all Baird's studies and all Baird's spokespeople won't change that narrative at this point.

Who knows what the final numbers will show. When the auditor general gets involved in a few years it could turn out to be not that big a gap. As I recall, the "billion-dollar HRDC boondoggle" turned out to be a few thousand dollars in actuality. Didn't matter, the canard is still trotted-out to this day.

Whether the stimulus scandal will impact voting intention is another matter entirely, but Baird's spin notwithstanding, the public view here is set.